Medical microbiology is both a branch of medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 and microbiology

Microbiology

Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...

 which deals with the study of microorganisms including bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites which are of medical importance and are capable of causing infectious disease

Infectious disease

Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...

s in human beings. It includes the study of microbial pathogenesis

Pathogenesis

The pathogenesis of a disease is the mechanism by which the disease is caused. The term can also be used to describe the origin and development of the disease and whether it is acute, chronic or recurrent...

 and epidemiology

Epidemiology

Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...

 and is related to the study of disease pathology

Pathology

Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....

 and immunology

Immunology

Immunology is a broad branch of biomedical science that covers the study of all aspects of the immune system in all organisms. It deals with the physiological functioning of the immune system in states of both health and diseases; malfunctions of the immune system in immunological disorders ; the...

.

This branch of microbiology is amongst the most widely studied and followed branches due to its great importance to medicine.

Along with providing a deep knowledge and understanding of the nature of pathogens this line of study has also been applied in several immunological innovations in the field of medical science. Through the development of vaccines against invading organisms, deadly and debilitating diseases such as small pox, polio, and tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 have been either eradicated or are more treatable because of the efforts of scientists and researchers in the field of medical microbiology.

Fields of medical microbiology

There are fours fields in medical microbiology :

• Medical bacteriology
  Bacteriology
  Bacteriology is the study of bacteria. This subdivision of microbiology involves the identification, classification, and characterization of bacterial species...
  
  
• Clinical virology
  Clinical virology
  Clinical or medical virology is a branch of medicine which consists in isolating and/or in characterising one or several viruses responsible for some human pathologies by various direct or indirect techniques...
  
  
• Medical mycology
  Medical Mycology
  Medical Mycology is a scientific journal published by the International Society of Human and Animal Mycology in eight issues per year. The journal was established in 1962 as Sabouraudia, honoring the French dermatologist/medical mycologist, Raimond Sabouraud and publishing 3 to 4 issues per year...
  
  
• Medical parasitology (Some parasites are not considered as microbes because of their size)

Work organization

The discipline consists primarily of four major spheres of activity:

1. The provision of clinical consultations on the investigation, diagnosis, and treatment of patients suffering from infectious diseases.
2. The establishment and direction of infection control programs across the continuum of care.
3. Public health and communicable disease prevention and epidemiology.
4. The scientific and administrative direction of a diagnostic microbiology laboratory.

In addition to these primary activities, medical microbiologists are also involved in teaching at all levels, and in research, both basic and applied.

In France

This residency is included in "clinical pathology" residency as a sub-specialty, which can be chosen at the end of the first two years of residency.

In United States of America

Medical doctors can participate in a Medical Microbiology training fellowship that is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) after they have completed residency training in pathology or fellowship training in infectious diseases. Others with non-medical doctoral degrees can participate in a similar training fellowship that is accredited by the Committee on Postgraduate Educational Programs (CPEP). As of 2010, 12 training hospitals in the United States offer Medical Microbiology fellowship training:

• Yale-New Haven Medical Center http://medicine.yale.edu/labmed/education/fellowships/microbio/index.aspx
• Emory University http://pathology.emory.edu/Training_MedicalMicrobiologyFellowship.html
• Indiana University http://www.pathology.iupui.edu/body.cfm?id=3816
• University of Iowa http://www.medicine.uiowa.edu/Pathology/site/education/fellowships/microfellow.html
• Johns Hopkins http://pathology.jhu.edu/department/training/fellowinfo.cfm#micro
• Harvard (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) http://www.bidmc.org/MedicalEducation/Departments/Pathology/Fellowship/MedicalMicrobiology.aspx
• Mayo Clinic http://www.mayo.edu/msgme/lm-clinmicrobio-rch.html
• Duke http://pathology.mc.duke.edu/website/WebForm.aspx?id=AcadProgMain
• Cleveland Clinic http://my.clevelandclinic.org/pathology/education/fellowship/microbiology.aspx
• University of Pennsylvania http://pathology.uphs.upenn.edu/Education/FellowshipPrograms/edu_fellow_prog_clinical.aspx
• University of Texas Southwestern http://www8.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept26496/files/446806.html
• University of Utah http://www.path.utah.edu/education/fellowships/clinical-microbiology/

According to Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)http://www.acgme.org/adspublic/, the University of Pennsylvania no longer offers the Medical Microbiology fellowship. However, the University of Chicago does now offer this fellowship, but no web reference to the fellowship is available on the University of Chicago's website.